


A Little Black Haired Beauty

by AylaofNoPeople



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 05:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14634705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AylaofNoPeople/pseuds/AylaofNoPeople
Summary: Cersei told Catelyn that she bore Robert a true-born son, a little black haired beauty who was carried away by a fever. The truth is somewhat deeper.





	A Little Black Haired Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet just jumped out of my head and I thought I might as well share it. The depth of GRRM's work is that it has birthed hundreds of fan theories, but I believe this gem is mostly confined to show-verse. You can see the conversation that inspired it in Season One, Episode Two when Cersei visits Catelyn at the bedside of a comatose Bran. 
> 
> Please enjoy, then read and review!

The maid dabbed at the sweat from Cersei's forehead and upper lip. She had bathed and even had her hair brushed out but the afternoon was unbearably hot and she was still wearied and uncomfortable from her labor. Nonetheless, she had born the heir to the Iron Throne, and she must be strong enough to present him to his father, she thought, propping herself up against the headboard as her son was handed to her.

She marveled at the pink beauty of his tiny little fingers, at the blueness of his eyes, and mostly at his rich black hair. Cersei had not believed a newborn baby could be so beautiful, as the lack of hair on so many revealed the lumpy softness of the skull, but not her son. She stroked his cheek, marveling at how the scrawny little neck attempted to turn the head and follow the sensation.

“You are my perfect firstborn,” she murmured tenderly, humming a lullaby she remembered her own mother singing to her and Jaime. “Whatever it took to bring you to me, it was worth it.” she whispered, pressing a kiss on the tiny foot.

A knock came on the door and she nodded to her maid to answer it. “Then get out after.”

“I have a son!” he bellowed, giving the maid a smacking kiss on the cheek. “You'll all have a shot of Tyroshi brandy today,” he added, as she left the room and he closed the door.

This was already going wrong.  He acted as if telling the servants was more important than thanking her. 

“Here is the heir, your grace,” she said, calling him to the bed as she held the child up slightly.

Their marriage had not been particularly happy so far, but this grace that had been granted them in the form of a perfect little baby boy must mean the turning of the tides. Robert would not fail to see that however else they might be mismatched, that at the very least, they could make children together who would be worthy and glorious.

“Yes, let me see my son,” he replied, taking the babe from her so that she winced, hoping he understood how he must be held, firmly but gently …

Then he turned, lifting the child out to inspect him. “He is as fine a son as I could have hoped to make with anyone,” he said then, handing the baby back to her, before he departed the room.

The love that had flooded her just a moment before was swiftly replaced with rage, and her body shook so badly that the baby began to sputter and cry.

The hours of sweat, and work and pain rushed through her head, as the blood there beat so swiftly that her vision swam in black and white.  _Just Anyone?_

The humiliating memory of her first night as his wife made her shudder, though she took care to pull the babe tightly to her body, as she recalled Robert's drunken cries for the dead wolf slut.

Her son began to cry in earnest, and some instinct in her suggested to untie her gown and pull her breast free of her shift. He latched on happily, greedily, and for a moment, she ached with love for this small creature, entirely new to the world, and wanted more than anything that he should love and belong only to her.

Then she looked down and saw his mouth puckering in a way to reminded her of Robert when he was enjoying some crass pleasure.

  _This baby was part of Robert!_

The idea twisted her mouth in disgust now. As perfect as her son had seemed to her before, the realization that his father did not value her or her part in producing the child now made her resent his suckling, and she removed her breast rudely from his mouth, ignoring his mewling pleas for return.

Then she righted herself to stand, using the headboard, but still holding the baby carefully, to take it to the nearby crib. The mewls were gulps now, and then cries, but ignoring the pain in her cunny, she walked carefully over and left him there, even as his cries became louder and more insistent.

“Have the next page nearby fetch Pycelle,” she told the white cloak in attendance on her chamber.

Robert would learn what it meant to scorn her and her labors.

\----------

The old goat was little more than a pervert, but he had his uses.

“Get rid of it,” she told him, nodding to the crib, where the babe had finally cried himself out.

“Oh, no, no your grace … you are beside yourself with the labors you have endured … I could not … It would be a sin ...”

Cersei wanted to scream, but as one of her family's most loyal allies, she knew she could not alienate him. At least not before he did as she asked. “I am not beside myself. I am planning for all of our futures.”

“But King Robert's baby …? He is the future!” Pycelle sputtered, waving his hands about.

“No, listen to me!” Cersei said, taking hold of the old man's arm and pulling him towards her. “King Robert is a drunken sot. You know it is Jon Arryn who is really running the kingdom. But who would you have inherit it?” She paused then.

She had discovered that the maester had spy holes in most of the bedchambers where ever he could access an adjoining room. She and Jaime had been relatively chaste since her wedding night, but Cersei had heard the scampering in another room after she brought him off with her mouth one afternoon early in her pregnancy. In any case, it was time to test the depth of Pycelle's loyalty. If he did deign to speak of it, ever, it would be treason, and she would deny it, then have him executed.

“So who would you choose, Maester? Some fool of a martial Baratheon just like Robert?” She smirked then, knowing how he admired her father. “Or would you have the cunning and strength of a proud, true-born lion? I believe you understand that of which I speak ...”

The old man's mouth formed an exaggerated “o” though no sounds came out. She could have laughed, but it would have spoiled the delivery, and she needed him to decide for himself. It would be a secret they would have to keep together.

“Oh,” he murmured finally. “Just so, your grace. But to murder an innocent baby, the grandson of the Lord Hand,” he continued, slipping into his memories.

“No,” Cersei shook her head, feeling her eyes fill with longing at those perfect moments with her son, before Robert had spoiled him for her. “Not to kill him,” she decided, closing her eyes for a moment until the tears passed.

She had not been sure, not until now;, but she could not kill a baby that was a part of her, not even if it was also a part of him. “But deliver it into someone else's care, as if it were an orphan. We'll only _say_ that it died,” she added, thinking how she had not even named the boy. “Do it tonight, and tomorrow, you will announce that the child was carried away by a fever.”

Robert would pay, she thought, once Pycelle had left. She went to look down on her son, tears spilling out of her eyes now, as she hated and loathed Robert for forcing her to sacrifice the boy. But by the Seven, he would pay. He would lose his pride, and his joy … this splendid son he thought he might have made with anyone, and she would never give him another true born child. Never.

She opened the door to the white cloak outside her door, and commanded him again: “Have my brother found and sent to me.”

Jaime would hold her. Even if she was not ready to couple with him again yet, he would hold her, and kiss her, and tell her that she was his only love. And one day soon, he would tell her that their son was perfect too.

\------------

Cersei remembered how well Pycelle had done in the matter, as she walked along the streets of Flea Bottom, even going out of his way to find a dead child to stage a burial.

Her ankles itched. True to its name, the slum was full of mangy animals and the accompanying insects. Her clothes too, were borrowed from a kitchen slut, and she wondered if they might be infested with some itchy pests.

She straightened the tacky little veil before she knocked on the door of the orphanage, pulling her purse from its safety at her waist band, and holding it out conspicuously.

“It's so late, ma'am,” the woman who answered muttered, before even greeting her.

Jingling the purse, Cersei did not deign to respond. “The one they call Gendry,” she instructed, handing over the money. As long as she paid, he would not be adopted by anyone else.

Occasionally, she thought that perhaps she should simply let the payments fail. The boy would surely be happier in a home with some bucolic housewife who for whatever reason, had been unable to bear a cub of her own.

_No, he is mine!_

He had already learned to walk, and to speak a few words, but he was only just learning to put more than one at a time together. “Mama? Come home Mama?” he asked her.

“No, my darling boy,” she cooed, sitting down and allowing him to climb into her lap. “Your mama is a tavern server,” she explained, inventing the first story that came to mind, since she had used the disguise before. “It is not a good place for a little lump of sugar like you to grow up, like it is here,” she insisted, tears filling her eyes.

“Home Mama?” he repeated, and she began to weep.  "Want home, mama," he insisted.

She slapped him. “No, Gendry!”

He began to cry then and she could not stand it.

"Please don't darling, I am so sorry. Mama is sorry. Here, Mama will sing you a song,” she said, tucking her arms around him and pulling him in so tightly that his cries tapered off as he huffed for breath.

Then she began to sing the favorite lullaby of her own childhood to him, tears spilling down her cheeks.

_But Robert had deserved it!_

She loosened her hold on him as she sang, and he slipped down from her lap, toddling around to face her, steadying himself against her knee, and making sweet babyish noises to accompany her song.

He reached up and patted her cheek, gripping her leg. “Mama sad?”

Pulling a sweet from her pocket, she handed it to him, remembering as he ate it how he had suckled at her breast for such a short time. “No darling, Mama isn't sad,” she said, wiping away the tears and smiling at him. “Mama loves you very much,” she said, kissing his cheek before she fetched the wardeness, who took him back to bed.

\-----------

She'd missed her courses now for three weeks, Cersei realized.

It was Jaime's child, she also realized, smiling viciously at the thought of her cuckolded fool of a husband. And now she would have a baby, a baby all of her own to love and spoil and cuddle and to be loved back, and it would not have any part of Robert in it, but only be hers.

And her beautiful black haired boy would be forever lost to her now, she decided ruefully.

She continued to send the money, but she did not go to see him at night anymore.

\----------

After Joffrey's tenth name-day celebration, Pycelle came to her about her first born son.

 _He died!_ Her mind screamed with the outrage of having to be reminded of him, and she narrowed her eyes, trying to keep her breathing steady as she focused resentfully on the reality of her first son's life.

He would be twelve now … of an age to begin aping adult responsibilities, or at least, that was what the Maester claimed.

“Place him with one of the better tradesmen of the city as an apprentice,” she instructed Pycelle, her mouth twisting bitterly. She did not wish to have to remember the boy, to think of him as a real live child, much less one growing into adulthood. “Pay them as much as you need to make them take him on,” she added, wishing she could shove the dirty old man down and kick him for forcing her to remember.

The money didn't matter. She only needed to be able to forget him again.


End file.
